I wrote about DeMint and his “no homo” policy for schools yesterday, and I just learned that on the other coast, a gay teaching intern has been removed from his position at an elementary school after being honest with a student who asked his teacher why he wasn’t married.

Seth Stambaugh is 23 and finishing his Master’s degree at Lewis and Clark College. Fortunately he wasn’t fired outright, but the pearl-clutching of some parents in Beaverton, Oregon (I’m resisting the urge to pun) resulted in his removal to another school where he is safely back in the closet. Whew! Dodged that bullet, Beaverton! Way to protect your children from qualified teachers and the facts of institutionalized discrimination!

I fully support gay marriage and find the scare tactics of the who-ever-the-hell-they-ares of the country to be 100% wrong. Still, let’s make no mistake about it, for our society (or any) to move in the direction of acceptance of homosexuality is nothing short of revolutionary.

It truly is a major corner to turn in the fight for gender equity. I say that because hegemonic masculinity needs for homosexuality to remain “other” for it to maintain it’s hegemony. Once fem men aren’t as marginalized as they have historically been in the West and around much of the rest of the world, their fem characteristics become less “other” and that means so do we, those of us who are actually female.

The traditional amongst us may not know this in any intellectual, factual sort of way, but they know it in their gut. And instinctively, they guard it’s preservation, to preserve patriarchal-male dominance in general, culturally speaking.

So, what will *ACTUALLY* happen? At first glance, on the superficial level, perhaps not much. But at a deep, structural and symbolic level, a lot. And thankfully so.

This poor guy. He hasn’t yet learned the way to deflect personal questions from students. I’m not saying he should be ashamed of his gayness, not at all! But it is the case that kids love to try to learn about the away-from-school lives of their teachers, and it’s really none of their business, sweet though it can be.

The school should have been ecstatic that they had a male teacher in the first place. It’s not easy to find men who want to teach elementary school, and it’s so important for kids to see both women and men in teaching positions at that age.

And now the school can take comfort in knowing that the rest of its gay teachers (because they do have them) will take a lesson from this progressive, compassionate action.